Explanation:
More than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954—with a whopping 1,004,756 entering the United States in 1907 alone. And yet, even during these days of peak immigration, for most passengers hoping to establish new lives in the United States, the process of entering the country was over and done relatively quickly—in a matter of a few hours.
The passengers disembarking ships at the gateway station in 1907 were arriving due to a number of factors, including a strong domestic economy and pogrom outbreaks of violence against Jews in the Russian Empire, says Vincent Cannato, associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and author of American Passage: The History of Ellis Island.
“It varied from person to person, but for 80 percent, the process took a few hours, and then they were out and through,” he says. “But it could also take a couple days, a couple weeks, a couple months or, in some very rare cases, a couple of years
